


Keep Collecting

by khler



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-09-03 08:05:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8704300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khler/pseuds/khler
Summary: It started with a pacifier in an aisle of canned soups, and Brian thought that they should’ve talked about things like this.





	

Just like most things in his life, it started with something stupid and probably symbolic. The pink things that used to litter every space in his life was no longer there, and sure, it had felt pretty empty in the beginning, but he had finally gotten to that stage where he thought he didn’t actually miss it. It was stupid. Trixie was gone, and so was the Brian that wasn’t himself. Himself, Brian McCook, was standing in a grocery aisle, staring at a stupid misplaced pink pacifier. He probably wasn’t even allowed to think of him. It’s not like they’d ever had a am-I-allowed-to-think-of-you-when-I-see-something-pink-in-the-canned-soup-aisle conversation, but it still felt like something he shouldn’t do. Symbolically and very stupidly of him, he ended up buying a pacifier that he never ever would end up having any use of, but it somehow felt like a way of recovering.

 

Seeing as Brian was an idiot, the collection started to grow. The pacifier had just been a stepping stone, the unstable foundation of something worse to come. It was followed by a heart-shaped lollipop, and then a bright pink lighter, and then a pair of glasses, and it just went on until the previously empty shoebox that had been holding everything, was suddenly too small.That should’ve probably been a sign for things to stop, but Brian had gotten used to collecting things, and it was nice having something at the back of his mind. If he focused really hard on it, it felt as if he could put Trixie together with each piece he collected, and with Trixie he could find Brian and with Brian he could find something that he wasn’t really sure what it was - had been-, but it made happy, and he liked pretending as if he was constantly looking for the right puzzle pieces to put him together. He wasn’t really sure which one of them he was trying to get back.

 

The lighter was given to him by a fan. It hadn’t even been a gift or anything; he needed to light a cigarette, and then someone gave him something to complete the task at hand. He’d forgotten to give it back, but it’s not like he desperately wanted to. He wasn’t sure where he got the lollipop from, but one day he came home and dropped it in the box before he got to bed, and he didn’t end up dwelling on it. The glasses were from a thrift store, and he hadn’t even thought twice before buying them. There were other things - puffy pink stickers, and probably a million different keychains of all kinds. There was a flower that had definitely been fresh when he bought it; but now the petals were all over the place, and the floral scent that it had given in the first place had started to get a bit heavy. Whatever, a box of pink knick-knacks that smelled of old grandmother’s’ perfume didn’t make it any less or more weirder than it was without it.

 

He ran into Brian a few months after the terrible awful night, and he wasn’t sure what he had been theoretically expecting, it was a lot more civil than he could’ve possibly imagined. There was greetings, how-have-you-been’s and absolutely no questioning if it was okay to keep a small shrine of one’s ex-boyfriend in a closet. He was assuming the answer would be no-what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-you?, or something of the likes, and it’s not like he could freak Brian out any more than he already had at this point.

 

The next time they ran into each other, it was a lot less civil, but the bar environment and their faces being caked in make-up might have more to with that. Trixie looked like Trixie always does, and Katya probably looked like Katya always did. They didn’t get a chance to talk until they’d both left the building, at which point they both chose to stand still, and somehow make things awkward by not staring at each other.

 

”I think I may possibly have built you a shrine.” Brian stared at him for a few seconds before replying,

”That’s probably the weirdest shit an ex has ever done for me.”

”Oh, I am so aware of that.” They both stayed silent for a beat of time.

”How are you not sure?”

”Of the shrine?”

”Yeah, how are you not entirely sure you built it?”

”I feel like shrines usually have photos and candles, and music that would appeal to some supernatural creature. So this is probably just a collection of weird things in a box.”

”Oh.” He looked down at the ground for a second, maybe hoping that some creature actually would appear to devour them both. Brian could relate to that, but he mostly hoped it would devour only himself.

”Can I look at it?”

”At the shrine?”

”…Yes.” To be fair, it’s not like they had changed the subject in the twenty seconds of complete silence. ”Or is it full of weird stalker-esque pictures of me that you’ve taken of me when I was sleeping?”

”I mean, I took them before we broke up.” He didn’t think about the fact that they were best friends for so long before they started dating. This all felt normal again, like the good (but not really old) days when they’d just gotten off of drag race. The days before the flirting suddenly got serious, before they realized they couldn’t blame it on cameras anymore. It’s not like it had mattered in the first place, after the season aired nobody had been able to clue in on their friendship. Brian blamed it on the editing.

 

So they walked home to Brian’s new California apartment, where a slightly dusty shoebox slash shrine was kept in his bedroom closet. He went to get it, as the other Brian settled on the couch. It didn’t feel like a kitchen table moment.

 

”This is a pacifier.” Brian is holding it up like the weirdest prize in the world. The floor had turned out to be a better place to spread out all of the tiny objects. ”Is this a fetish that you just forgot to tell me about?”

 ”I’m afraid it doesn’t have anything to do with previously unexplored kinks. Sorry.” Their snappy conversations had come back, or maybe they had never left, but they felt comfortable again.

 ”So, that’s the end of the box.” And it was empty, little pink objects all around them. The oldest of the Brian’s had managed to put all five pairs of sunglasses on himself, and he seemed to be very proud of the fact. Now it felt a bit ridiculous.

 "Yeah.”

 ”I was kinda hoping there would be something major in here.” He’d pulling at one of the edges of the box slightly, not really ripping it but not leaving it completely un-destroyed either.

 ”A ring?” Brian can almost feel how they both suck in a harsh breath each in anticipation of a rough conversation.

 ”It would’ve been a really cool proposal. All this stuff, and then just…” What followed was some sort of motion that made more sense in context than out of it, meaning lost to the both of them.

 ”Yeah. I just don’t want to-”

 ”Commit? Settle down?”

 ”I don’t like the idea of having someone legally tied to me. And you know it’s not fair to any of us to just string it along further than we did.” He felt conflicted. Their relationship was over, and they both knew it. There wasn’t lingering feelings that were slowly creeping in, there was just them missing each other, and regretting it ending.

 ”We were together for two years. That wasn’t being tied.”

 "You know what I mean. You want the full family fantasy. White fence with two point five kids.”

 ”We didn’t have to have kids. We could’ve gotten a dog.”

 ”But then you’d be settling.” Brian - the both of them - knew that the older of the two was right on this. He’d always thought that this was the one thing the parties of a relationship needed to be on the same side of. He didn’t want to have a husband who’d end up miserable with him having choked his dream of a perfectly married life. He didn’t want to be dragged into a life he didn’t want. Their relationship had been fun whilst it lasted, but they knew there wasn’t any future in it.

 ”I just wish we could’ve agreed on this one thing.

 ”Believe me, I wish I could want to be married, and that I liked the idea of children. But I just don’t. And you do, and I would never want to take that away from you.”

 ”I’ll call you if I change my mind.” He leaned in, and the kiss was short, familiar and full of the bitter taste that only a goodbye could bring. Brian got up from the floor to leave the apartment, still holding the pacifier from before. They knew why it had been in the box - why Brian had looked at it and seen the other man reflect back at him in the shiny plastic.

 

And that was the end of it all.


End file.
